KINGSTON, N.Y. -- Mayor Shayne Gallo's push to ban smoking under the city's Uptown canopies has garnered support from a Common Council committee.

The Laws and Rules Committee on Tuesday unanimously recommended that smoking be banned from underneath the Uptown canopies, commonly known as the Pike Plan, on Wall and North Front streets.

Gallo has pushed city lawmakers to develop legislation preventing smoking under the canopies.

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Gallo said Wednesday that he has received complaints from some business owners about smoking under the Pike Plan. The mayor said smoking under the Pike Plan is "offensive" to pedestrians.

Gallo said that cigarette butts dropped under the canopies are unsightly and some are making their way into storm drains. He also urged business owners to supply cans for cigarette butt disposal.

"Storm drains are not ashtrays," Gallo said.

The proposed new ban on smoking under the Pike Plan is actually an amendment to a city law that already bans smoking in parks and within a certain distance of City Hall.

Alderman Thomas Hoffay, D-Ward 2, the council's majority leader, said he supported the ban. Still, Hoffay said, smoking bans like this one need enforcement. He said that there is a ban in place around the City Hall property, yet smoking continues there.

Hoffay represents the Uptown area of the city.

"If you are going to keep passing these prohibitions they have to be laws they (the administration) has to keep up with with enforcement and they can start in their own house at City Hall," Hoffay said.

Alderwoman Debbie Brown, R-Ward 9, the council's minority leader, said that it was important to ban smoking under the canopies.

"The Pike Plan is semi-enclosed canopy (and) I feel smoking should not be allowed," Brown said in an email. "People have to walk under the canopy to get around Uptown and they should not have to inhale secondary smoke."

Still, smokers will be allowed to puff away out from under the Pike Plan including while sitting on benches near planters between the sidewalk and street in the Pike Plan area that were put in place under a taxpayer-funded streetscape effort.

Under the proposal, to be voted on by the Common Council in September, anyone caught violating the no-smoking ban under the Pike Plan would face a $100 fine. The same fine is in place for violating no-smoking bans at various spots in the city.